The Price of Experience
by Rubyslippers89
Summary: Emma and Sean discuss why waiting for the right moment can be good, too.


A/N: Hello All! Here I am, back again with too much time on my hands and a little too much Degrassi Obsession. I dreamt this one up back when the Ep where Emma and Sean buy condoms came out. It occurred to me that if Emma and Spike had had a sex talk, that Sean and Emma had likely had a sex talk. And given how the situation had played out in _The Bitterest Pill_, it seemed like the Emma/Sean dynamic regarding this issue was overlooked by the writers. Plus, with Manny as a best friend, who wouldn't feel the pressure, right? Anyway, here it goes: yet another Emma/Sean aborted sexual encounter.

Disclaimer: Let's be honest here, if I owned the show, Peter would not exist, JT would still be alive and enjoying his oatmeal, and Sean would be shirtless far more than is strictly healthy in the Canadian winter.

I fairly floated up to Sean as he got out of his car in front of Degrassi, the cool autumn air not even close to affecting my warm and fuzzy mood.

I lean up and kiss him, pouring all of the happy warm fuzzies I can manage into the action.

"Mmmm, that was nice. What's with you?" His eyes stay closed as I pull away, the surprise still evident on his face. I don't usually go for the whole PDA thing when there's a chance my dad could walk up behind me, so I don't blame him for being confused when I practically walk up and pounce on him a mere 50 meters from my dad's office, but again, I point out, I'm in a mood.

"Nothin' special. Just, can we go back to your place, or do you have to work?" Sometimes Sean takes an extra shift in the afternoons, but he's usually finished with the garage by the time school gets out.

"I'm all yours." He looks at me, eyebrow cocked and small smile on his face and I almost kiss him again, just for the hell of it. Then it occurs to me that I can, just for the hell of it. As I take advantage of this fact, Sean puts his hand on my waist and squeezes gently.

"Do you want to keep doing this," He pecks my lips for emphasis, "back at my place, or should we stick around here and wait for your dad to pull us apart and send me home while he drags you off to a nunnery?" He leans his forehead up against mine and I giggle a little.

"Fine. Point taken. Let's go back to your place." I pull away from him and smile a little. He grins at me and whatever mood I'm in and walks around to the driver's side of the car as I get into the passenger's seat.

He starts the car and I take his hand. He looks at me oddly again and I can't wait to wipe the confusion off his face as soon as we get back to his apartment.

"So, good day today?" He's smirking at me as he pulls into the street. I want to kiss the smirk off his face even more than I wanted to kiss off the confusion.

"Average, I guess." I make my assessment nonchalantly and listen to the slight chuckle from my boyfriend.

"Really. Than where's the good mood coming from?" He pulls into his apartment cluster's parking lot and I feel my hands practically itching to feel his chest.

"Nowhere, honestly. Can't I just want to spend time with my boyfriend?" He turns off the car and I hop out, eager to get inside.

He gives me one more weird look as he lets us both into his tiny, ground-floor apartment. As soon as the door shuts I push him back up against it and catch his mouth with mine.

I absolutely adore this boy. His brushes his tongue across my lips and I obligingly open my mouth for him. After all, he asked so nicely.

He's moving his hands across my back and under my shirt and I almost can't stand up all the way. His touch makes me melt and I don't know how to reclaim my independence here. Now he's taken complete control, moving us slowly over towards his bedroom, where the only piece of remotely soft furniture lives in his apartment.

Damn it! I was supposed to be doing the seducing here!

But that's always the way it works with Sean. He's not really one to start something like this—he's far too shy—but once I start he's more than happy to take over for me. Which is just as well since once he starts fully participating there's not much I can bring myself to do besides exactly what he wants me to do.

I moan softly into his mouth as he pushes me onto the bed, giving me only a few seconds to adjust before he pushes me back into a lying position and advances on top of me. I can barely breathe as he moves his mouth off of mine and down to my neck, managing to find the perfect spot—the one no one else has ever been able to find.

It's not until I make my move, trying to pull his shirt off him, that he stops.

"Wait, Em." He pulls back and sits up, bringing me with him. I'm still a little dazed, and he pauses while I collect myself and sit up with him.

"What's wrong?" I ask innocently, even though I know the answer. We haven't gone anywhere near the final step of actual sex since we got back together, or, well, _ever_, and there's no way Sean's going to let me get away with not talking about it before we do anything.

"You know what's wrong." Typical Sean—he doesn't want to talk, he just wants to have talked about it.

"You're going to have to spell this out for me." Hah! Two can play at this game.

He looks into my eyes. I know he knows what I'm doing here, and I have a sneaking suspicion that despite my innocent look he is not buying it.

"Sex, Emma. We haven't talked about it at all and you're trying to bypass the conversation. I'm not sure why, though, because usually…" He trails off, shaking his head. Fine, he's called my bluff.

"Usually what?" He never finished his sentence and now I'm curious. It has nothing whatsoever to do with avoiding answering his unspoken question.

"Usually you're one to analyze everything." The statement didn't hold any of the annoyance I was expecting, but it certainly held the unwavering tone that I've come to recognize as Sean's 'no weaseling out of it' voice. There's no way I'm getting out of this conversation now.

"Fine. I talked to Manny this afternoon." I pause for effect and he calmly looks back at me. He's not saying anything and I know he's not going to—not until I'm done. I take a deep breath and prepare to lay it all out for him.

"She was talking about how she was going out with her new boyfriend this weekend and she mentioned that she needed to make a condom run in case things went far enough to warrant them." He continues to just look at me, like he's not really sure where I'm going with this.

"I'm not really sure where you're going with this." Well, I'll be damned. Confirmation on my psychic abilities.

"Well, it just kind of hit me, you know? We've been together for way longer than _any _of Manny's relationships—except Craig, of course—and well, what are we waiting for?"

"We don't have to measure ourselves against Manny, you know." Sean's voice is low and reassuring, he's careful to keep the censure I know is there out of his voice.

"I know that, Sean! But that doesn't make the knowledge that we still haven't had sex any easier!" I'm frustrated now, I wasn't supposed to say that. He's going to figure out what's really bothering me now and get angry.

"What are you talking about?" His voice is still maddeningly calm and it's beginning to drive me batty.

"I just, well, look—why are we even talking about this? Don't you _want_ to sleep with me?" I'm getting desperate now, and the question flies out before I can really consider the implications of either of his answers.

He catches my face and gives me a mind blowing kiss that makes me forget what I was trying so hard to hide.

"Of course I want to sleep with you. More than I can express politely, in fact, I have a good number of fantasies I absolutely cannot wait to try out with you. But I can't until we talk about it. I won't turn this into something cheap, Emma." His quiet declaration brings me back down to Earth and I go over what he said in my mind a few times.

"Because that's all we'd be? Cheap? Or is that just all I'd be?" I'm stunned that he could think that being with me would be cheap. Tears are springing into my eyes and all I can think about is holding them back until I can get away from him.

"What? No, Emma, stop. That's not what I meant at all!"

"Really? I thought you were over what happened to me and Jay, Sean? You said you were o.k. with it!"

"You slept with Jay!?" The shocked look on his face lets me know I may have gotten off track with the discussion.

"Of course not, Sean. We didn't go all the way." I take pity on him and lower my voice, which, I am a big enough person to acknowledge, was bordering on hysterical shrieking.

"Then what the hell are you talking about?" He looks really confused again and I feel myself losing my temper again.

"You don't want to sleep with me because of what I did with Jay! You think I'm dirty, just like everyone else." My voice is quieter this time and wobbly towards the end as it betrays the tears I can feel building in my throat.

"No, Emma, no! I don't! Just, well, just stop a minute." He stops speaking and pulls me into his arms as he leans back on the headboard. "When we have sex, I want it to be special. I don't want it to be because Manny said something, I don't want it to be on a random afternoon when we couldn't think of anything better to do, and I really don't want to be rushed or hurried when it happens. I just want it to be us. And when it does happen?" He looks at me and I'm staring into his eyes.

"Yeah?"

"It couldn't possibly be cheap." I can't resist at this point and move closer to him, wrapping my arms around his neck and burying my head into his neck. He rubs his hands over my back and settles them at my waist.

He's being perfect now, and I'm reminded of why I wanted my first time to be with this boy in the first place.

Whenever it ends up happening.


End file.
